Yes, it's time (RE: Is it time to stop printing journals?)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> I am curious to hear whether this is a commonly held sentiment.

I wouldn't call Scott's statement an expression of sentiment; it 
was an observation of what's happening among his patrons.  And I 
would largely second it from the perspective of my institution. 
A few years ago we instituted a strict and explicit program of 
online preference for our journals -- if a journal is available 
online and someone wants us to acquire it in print, that person 
must submit a written justification to the Dean of Libraries.  I 
think I can count on one hand the number of requests that we've 
received.  The fact is that printed paper is a lousy format for 
distributing journal content.  It's a great format for extended 
reading, but a terrible one for any other kind of 
information-seeking.

> If this equation has indeed flipped in a matter of a half-dozen 
> or so years, this ranks as one of the most important periods in 
> scholarly communication history.

I don't think there's any question that this is exactly the case. 
What's been remarkable to me is the range of responses to these 
dramatic changes -- library patrons have largely taken them in 
stride, few of them seemingly aware of the fundamental and 
radical nature of the changes that have taken place in the 
marketplace that serves them.  Many of us in the library 
profession, meanwhile (though by no means all of us), are in 
denial, defending our traditional territory and furiously 
continuing to focus on the materials that our patrons are least 
interested in.

Is it time to stop printing journals?  Yes, and past time -- even 
in the humanities, where affection for print has tended to 
linger.  Regardless of content, ink-on-paper is a highly wasteful 
and ineffective way to distribute discrete, article-sized chunks 
of information.

It's also, by the way, time to stop thinking in terms of journal 
"issues" -- the issue is a meaningless construct that made sense 
only in the print realm.

---
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
rickand@unr.edu